Cadbury Mini Egg Magic Bars

Happy Spring! I hope by the time you’re reading this post that the weathermen were all wrong and there’s not a drop of snow on the ground in Boston this morning. I have a feeling that won’t be right, but a girl can dream. I guess it was too good to be true to go from a winter of 100+ inches of snow to a winter with less than a foot. You know what else are just too good to be true? Cadbury Mini Eggs.

I’ve made it this far into mini egg season without having to invest in stretch pants, so I’d call that a huge victory. How did I do it? Well let me tell you about the new Cadbury Mini Egg Diet my fellow addicts. If you bake your entire stock of mini eggs into desserts and immediately ship them off to friends on the other side of the country, then and only then, will you be able to avoid eating an entire bag by yourself.

My friend Jackie down in Texas is a fellow mini egg lover, which I discovered back in my agency days when I first started The Salted Cookie and was bringing mini egg treats to work. I’ve had an idea for Cadbury Magic Bars in my head for a while now and knew Jackie would have to be the taste tester for these. Not only because I trust her to provide a fair opinion, but also because of the fact she lives down in Texas so these cookies would bar far out of my arms reach quickly after baking them. When thinking of how to make these magic bars, I was trying to find a way to mix it up so it wasn’t just regular magic cookie bars with mini eggs on top. So when I was scrounging around in my magic baking drawer of goodness I came across a box of Vanilla Wafers and decided to swap out the regular graham cracker crust for a vanilla wafer crust. Top these bad boys with extra coconut, some walnuts and a combination of milk and white chocolate chips, and the most beautiful magical – Unicorn shooting rainbows out of its horn over a pot of gold filled with puppies kind of magical – cookie bars were born.

If you’re a mini egg addict, like me, then I feel your pain around this time of year. Everywhere you turn, there they are just staring you in the face with their tempting candy coated milk chocolate goodness. And when people know you love mini eggs, they think they are being nice when they buy a pack for you. No. That’s not nice. That’s like handing someone a mini bag of crack and acting like you just did them a big favor. I’m already trying to mentally prepare for surviving work this week since one of my coworkers decided to order a FIVE POUND bag of mini eggs for our office. He said that by the time I eat 2.5 lbs I will probably be so sick of them I won’t want them anymore. Yeah right. But hey, maybe my flight will be cancelled because of the snow and then I won’t have to worry, right? Because a cancelled flight is probably the only thing that will keep me from slowly taking down that 5lb back solo.

Like I said, it literally took me shipping these bars off to Houston immediately after photographing them to avoid from eating the entire batch myself. They really are THAT good. Maybe even more addicting than mini eggs themselves, if I might be so bold to make that statement.

Let’s start from the bottom. Vanilla wafter crust. I think this is a big part of what makes these bars so magical. I threw an entire box of Vanilla Wafers into the food processor, added some sugar and melted butter, and threw it in the bottom of a glass baking dish.

Top that with some ooey gooey sweetened condensed milk. Then a heavy handed sprinkle of sweetened shredded coconut on top of that sticky milk. White and milk chocolate chips evenly coated the top of the coconut. And of course, some chopped walnuts for texture and flavor.

And for the pièce de résistance, I chopped up as many mini eggs were left in the bag I had opened (maybe 2 cups? or 1.5? or 1.4 cups? Let’s call it an even 1 cup) and sprinkled them all over the top of the bars. Throw that in the oven to “get all happy” as my Uncle Jimmy would say, and BAM! The most perfect flavor combination in the history of baking was born. And that my friends, is why they call them MAGIC cookie bars.

So if the Easter Bunny is good to you next weekend and lays some Cadbury Mini Eggs in your basket (that is where mini eggs come from, by the way) then be sure to whip up a batch of these Cadbury Mini Egg Magic Bars. You won’t be disappointed!

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 13x9 glass baking dish with parchment and spray with nonstick spray.

In a food processor, pulse the vanilla wafer cookies until they are finely ground and the consistency of graham cracker crumbs. In a mixing bowl, combine the vanilla wafer crumbs, granulated sugar and melted butter. This should have a sand-like consistency.

Press the vanilla wafer crust down evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan, using your hands to pack it in tightly and evenly.

On top of the crust, evenly pour the sweetened condensed milk. Top with the shredded coconut next, followed by milk chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and walnuts.

Coarsely chop the mini eggs and sprinkle evenly on top of the bars. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes, until the coconut is lightly golden.